Myopathic Muscular Therapy's preservationist 
During the past 50 years there have been a number of touch-therapy techniques that have been preserved in their original form. Tom Bowen's technique, now called The Bowen Technique or BowTech, preserved by Ozzie Rentsch of Australia; and Eunice Ingham's reflexology, preserved by her nephew, Dwight Byers, are two examples of techniques still being taught and practiced as their founders intended. Don Christner has been persistent in maintaining the original form and function of the touch-therapy he learned from his mentor and the creator of Myopathic Muscular Therapy, Claude Heckman, M.D.

Christner's insistence on preserving the integrity of Heckman's original Myopathic Muscular Therapy is so stringent, he admits that he "has had to let go of some instructors because they were either adding something or not doing something just right." This has been no small task, because Christner has been teaching the technique since Heckman's death in 1976.

A general medical practitioner, surgeon and family obstetrician in Seattle, Washington, Heckman graduated from the Andrew Taylor Still College of Osteopathy and Surgery in 1926. He developed the Myopathic techniques during his 45 years of medical practice. Heckman also conducted extensive research into his method. In the latter years of his practice, he used only the manual therapy he developed.

Christner became interested in healing when he was a 12-year-old Boy Scout. His scout master was an osteopath and allowed Christner to spend a lot of time in his office. "I would see his patients come in to the office in pain," says Christner, "and when they left they had a smile on their face. They were pain-free." After he was discharged from the Navy he began his quest to find someone to teach him what his old scout master had used on his patients. He found Heckman in Seattle in 1968 and studied with him for the next seven years.

Heckman's theory postulates that abnormal structure causes abnormal function and therefore disease. Normal structure is the basis of normal function and therefore health, he would say. The progressive build-up of residual tension of the muscles of the body, particularly of the spinal-column area, constitutes abnormal structure. The residual tension restricts blood and nerve flow, which, he claims, is largely responsible for disease in the tissues. Myopathic therapy reverses this process through the progressive relaxation of the muscles by a special manipulative technique to restore blood and nerve flow into and through the tissues.

Heckman, says Christner, also believed that inflammation in muscle tissue could cause such conditions as fibromyalgia, fibrositis, myositis, myofibrosis, myalgia, neuritis, arthritis [and] headaches.

"What we do," he explains, "is go down by degrees from the initial contact to the point of resistance in the tissue. We go down one degree and hesitate; down two and hesitate; down three and hesitate; down four and hesitate—and at this level we are at the point of resistance. We do not want to traumatize the tissue. The hesitation before proceeding to the next pressure level gives the tissue a micro second to respond."

Christner's procedure uses a simple counting method of 1-2-3-4. "So," he continues, "if we go down to a count of three, we are going to have three responses in the tissue. If we go four, we have four responses. That's what makes it so quick versus just going in and pushing and pulling to the point of resistance and back. It is those hesitations as we go down to the point of resistance that makes it so quick."

This process of applying pressure to the muscle tissues and providing incremental hesitations, Christner says, "invites the tissue to let me in. There is no traumatizing, so the person doesn't guard their body." The pressure is applied with the heel of the hand and thumb, equally.

The key to Myopathic Muscular Therapy is how well the practitioner can sense the density of the tissues under their hands and apply appropriate degrees of pressure to the areas that exhibit abnormalities. The learning process requires lots of feedback from the recipient and practice. Christner says the whole procedure is the application of assessment and therapy at the same time. However, once learned, the practitioner discourages communication with the client during the session.

Christner calls the abnormalities he's learned to feel "lesions." There isn't a singular type of feeling that identifies a lesion, he says. "It can feel like striated cords lying next to each other. It could feel like just one big cord, like a piece of rope. It could be in various lengths and diameters. It could feel like beads, or marbles or hills or valleys or sandpaper, or mushy, too." As he progresses through the session, the lesion, whatever shape, size or consistency it might present, will be altered, and the tension it exhibited is relieved.

Christner describes his work as non-technical and aimed only at getting results. He is more interested in teaching the technique and procedure and how to help people, than giving instruction in the theoretical knowledge underlining the therapy. His clients and students speak highly about the success he achieves, and that's what really matters to him.
—Robert Noah Calvert